


Birds of a Feather

by Azzandra, tessaere, Umbramatic



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Animals, F/F, Monsters, Slow Burn, Ultra Rarepair Big Bang (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), unlikely friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26142079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azzandra/pseuds/Azzandra, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tessaere/pseuds/tessaere, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umbramatic/pseuds/Umbramatic
Summary: Hapi discovers there's somebody at the monastery that she may have some things in common with... and maybe someone who can help her with her little monster problem.
Relationships: Marianne von Edmund/Hapi
Comments: 12
Kudos: 56
Collections: 2020 Ultra Rarepair Big Bang





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Ultra Rarepair Big Bang 2020.
> 
> Art by:  
> [Umbramatic](https://twitter.com/umbramaticjo) (Chapter 1)  
> [tessaere](https://twitter.com/clairoscuro) (Chapter 2)

Hapi knew she'd screwed up bad. There was a particular type of dread pitted behind her ribs, the embarrassment that washed over her hot and freezing every time this happened.

' _Way to go, Half-Decade Hapi_ ,' she thought to herself as she crouched in her hiding spot, between a tree and the crumbled monastery wall that she was meant to patrol.

Past the crumbling wall, a monstrous bird snapped at the air and made discontent cawing sounds to itself as it prowled along the ground; looking for someone to take its anger out on, no doubt. It appeared promptly when the sigh escaped past Hapi’s lips, but Hapi had at least had the presence of mind to hide before it spotted her. 

At least, Hapi thought, there was nobody for it to attack. It would grow bored and fly away, maybe. It was out in the open, the skies were clear and starry, and no patrols were going to circuit through this place for a while. It was going to be fine as long as nobody saw it and did something stupid, right?

"Oh. Um."

Hapi stiffened when she heard the voice, because quiet as it was, it still carried through the night air. The monster heard it too, because it shuffled its position, scrabbling to turn towards the sound.

There was no avoiding it now. If it came to a fight, Hapi ought to jump in there, make up for her screw-up. Yet, when she dared peek out of her hiding spot, what she saw made very little sense.

The moon was full, as much light to see by as anyone could hope for, and by the moonlight Hapi saw this:

A bird monster, crouched on the ground, head bent down and jagged beak open, but eyes half-lidded.

A woman with her hands outstretched, palms open and carrying no weapon.

"It's alright," she was saying, voice gentle and soothing, "you'll find your way back. Just take a moment to orient yourself."

Then Hapi watched incredulously as the bird monster did not bite her head off, but instead peaceably took flight, and disappeared into the sky. The woman waved goodbye, apparently taking this as some kind of ordinary occurrence instead of a complete miracle that she wasn't slowly being digested into bird droppings right then.

Hapi left her hiding spot as the sound of flapping wings grew distant, and inched closer to the source of all this strangeness.

"Hey," Hapi called out.

It was only then, when she turned her face in the moonlight, pale and wide-eyed, that Hapi recognized her: Marianne. The healer, the one who was always praying. And, apparently, skulking the monastery grounds in the middle of the night.

"Marianne, right?" Hapi asked.

The answer never came, because Marianne turned around, picked up her skirts, and high-tailed it quicker than Hapi would have guessed possible in her flouncy dress.

Which was, admittedly, a reaction Hapi was familiar with. Plenty of people made a hasty retreat when they saw her. But usually that was because they were afraid of monsters, which evidently Marianne wasn't, judging by the stunt she'd pulled. Somehow, this made Hapi feel more personally insulted, but then again, maybe some hooded stranger jumping out at her in the night didn't precisely set Marianne at ease.

As she was ruminating on the very strange events just passed, Hapi noticed Marianne had left something behind. She crouched down next to the basket on the ground, pulled back the towel on top--and was met with two small bird chicks, squeaking their displeasure at the chilly night air. Hapi covered them right back up again.

"Mm, nope, no way," she said. "I'm too young to be a mother."

So she picked up the basket, and headed back to the monastery.

* * *

When Hapi was very young, she recalled finding a small baby bird, fallen from its nest. She ran to her parents, cradling the small, ugly, warm creature, and they gently helped her rear the bird until it was old enough to fly away, and never return. Hapi assumed there was probably some sort of lesson in that: about how to care for small things; how to let them go; how to be gentle with things you can easily overpower.

Mostly, Hapi learned how to find bugs and worms for a little bird to eat. This was useful knowledge now, because all Hapi wanted was to go to bed and adjust her sleep schedule again, and she couldn't do that with two tiny chicks cheeping demands to be fed. What was supposed to be a short walk for air had turned into an unspeakable hassle.

It would have been less of one if she could have located Marianne as soon as she returned to the monastery, but it was the dead of night, and since Marianne wasn't in the infirmary or cathedral, and Hapi had no idea where her room was, it seemed Hapi was going to retain custody of the wayward bird children until morning.

That was how Hapi ended up sitting cross-legged on her bed, peering into the basket and hand-feeding worms into the open, loud beaks of two very ugly baby birds. They were in that stage of being mostly naked and awkward, growing downy feathers in uneven patches. Hapi wasn't sure what kind of birds they'd grow into, but she didn't think it mattered at this point. She was going to hand them over to Marianne in the morning, and that was that.

At least there was no concern of the noise keeping Constance up. Her bunk was empty, and she was doubtless keeping herself up with another harebrained experiment that would restore the honor of House Nuvelle. Hapi didn't always keep up with the specifics, but whatever Coco's latest dabblings into the bizarre were, they seemed to be going well, judging by the volume of her cackling lately.

Finally, the demanding screeches of the baby chicks stopped, and they dropped off into heavy sleep, cuddled up in the rags that lined the basket.

Hapi stared at them for a few moments more, marveling at how ugly they were, and how cute that inexplicably made them, but eventually, she pulled the towel back over them, and settled down in bed to sleep.

* * *

"Hey. Marianne, right?"

The way Marianne whipped around, an entire stack of bandages almost tipping over from her arms, felt a bit unwarranted to Hapi. Marianne scrambled to stop the bandages from falling to the ground, and Hapi reached out a hand to steady the stack as well. Between the two of them, they managed to narrowly avert disaster.

"Um-- yes, th-that's right," Marianne answered, eyes darting nervously all around the infirmary. "Can I help you?"

She set the bandages down, then smoothed down her own skirts. She made to wring her hands, caught herself, smoothed down her skirt again. Hapi didn't know what to make of it; this girl was a mess.

"Yeah, you kind of forgot something last night," Hapi said, lifting up the basket she held in her other hand, and tugging the towel off the top. On cue, the chicks began their incessant peeping, even though Hapi had given them worms just earlier.

Marianne's eyes widened, and she leaned forward with obvious concern. "I was so worried! I came back to find them, and they were gone, and I thought--" She trailed off suddenly, and her face went sheet white as she recalled where she'd left them. "That was you, last night..." she muttered, avoiding Hapi's eyes.

"Yep," Hapi said. "That was me."

The silence that followed was... well. Awkward probably didn't cover it. It was hard to articulate just how strange it was to have inexplicable abilities and still get upstaged by someone doing something even more inexplicable, but Hapi was beginning to see it was a whole mood and it fell over the room hard.

"So," Hapi said after the prolonged silence curdled over for too long, "do you still want the birds back, or--"

"Yes, please, if I can just check them over--" Marianne accepted the basket with what could only be relief, and cradled it gently to her chest as she bent her head towards the birds. "Hello. Are you alright?"

She cooed over the chicks, reached in to turn them over, or check them, or whatever it was she did with them, and that was Hapi's opportunity to leave. She could walk out of the infirmary and not have to deal with any of this again.

But.

Hapi was pretty sure last night that she was going to end up in a monster's stomach, and she was also pretty sure Marianne was the reason everything worked itself out so smoothly. Thanks felt warranted, even if Hapi wasn't sure how she would even phrase it, because she didn't know what Marianne had done, exactly.

"Do you need help with anything else?" Marianne asked, looking towards Hapi again. The bird chicks had fallen silent, for once.

"Yeah, I--" Hapi considered her words for a moment, should have probably thought about what to say beforehand, but then, what the hell. Might as well be out with it, "--was just gonna say, neat trick you pulled last night."

Marianne stiffened. She tried to play it off like she didn't, but Hapi could see the tension in her body, joints locked like she was stopping herself from running away.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Marianne replied, voice no longer meek, but cold as glaciers.

"Hey," Hapi threw up her hands defensively, "no judgment from me. Take it from someone who can't sigh without monsters appearing, whatever that was? Thank you. Things don't usually work out so well when I screw up like that."

"Oh." Marianne's shoulders slumped. The tension didn’t quite drain out so much as fizzle over. "That's right. I'd forgotten. Your sighs..."

"No big deal," Hapi shrugged, because it was still novel that someone would forget. But then, they'd been classmates briefly before the war started, and hadn't so much as had a full conversation until now, five years and one whole continental conflict later. Hapi wasn't so vain as to think everyone was constantly thinking about her, though at times it did feel like they couldn't think of anything but what she could do.

"That monster was there because of you, then," Marianne surmised.

"Yeah," Hapi admitted, shifting from foot to foot. "What was it that you said to it, anyway?"

"Wh-what makes you think I said anything?" Marianne looked away, nervous again.

"I don't know, it looked like you were talking to it? Weren't you?"

"I--" Marianne's jaw worked soundlessly for a few seconds, before she huffed, and walked past Hapi to shut the door to the infirmary. When she turned around again, she had a serious look about her, and gathered herself to her full height. "I would appreciate it if you didn't speak to anyone about what happened."

"Okay," Hapi agreed easily. "Not telling anyone you can speak to monsters."

"I can't-- that's not it at all. I don't speak to monsters," Marianne said, frowning. "Sometimes, with animals... I get along with them. That's all."

"Oh, that's all," Hapi said, raising an eyebrow. She didn't mean for it to come out quite so sarcastic, so she softened her tone before she continued, "It's kind of impressive, you know. I'm more used to monsters trying to eat me. Didn't know you could just--" She made an ambiguous gesture, that illustrated nothing, "--ask them to leave nicely."

"They don't mean to be violent," Marianne said. But her mouth clicked closed, like she hadn't meant to let the words out.

"What do you mean?" Hapi asked cautiously.

Marianne looked down, her hand twisting in her skirts, her brows pulling together in a frown. It took a few clenches of the hand, several thoughts ticking through her head, obvious only by the twitch of her brows, but eventually she explained.

"I mean-- it's-- confusing," Marianne said. "To suddenly be called to somewhere, unexpectedly, not knowing where you are or how you got there. Wouldn't you be scared, too?"

"Well, I wouldn't try to eat anyone for it," Hapi said, and at Marianne's deepening frown, threw her hands up in a shrug. 

"When you summon the monsters, what are the usual circumstances?" Marianne asked.

Hapi thought back, though she didn't particularly like to. Battlefields, where she threw monsters into the fray for her own benefit. The Abyss, where wings and talons and bristled spines came up against walls, and people shrieked, trapped together--the people with the monsters, the monsters with the people. She thought yet further back, when Hapi was the one in the cage, and the monsters she summoned were fodder for that woman's experiments--

Well, it wasn't like Hapi was calling these creatures to a fun outing together, fair enough. She'd spent so long thinking of them as a misery inflicted upon her, that it only just now occurred that they very well might have seen Hapi as some catastrophe that befell them instead. 

After all, so far, how many had ended up dead? How many times had Hapi felt nothing but relief at the sight of their broken bodies, riddled with arrows or slashed with swords or burnt by magic? How many times had she observed that last heave of their gargantuan bodies as they breathed their last, and felt as happy about it as that moment when the latch to her cage had been broken, before she knew another prison awaited her?

"Yeah," Hapi admitted, "I guess you have a point. Never thought of it that way."

She tried not to think of it at all. Why would she? It wasn't like there was any way she could help it, even if it was true. Made her feel only marginally better that she wasn't the only one dismayed by this ability of hers.

"Anyway," Hapi said, "I just wanted to drop off the birds."

"Oh. The birds, yes," Marianne said, and stopped abruptly again, in that way that indicated there was still more to say.

"What?" Hapi asked.

"Nothing," Marianne said quickly, eyes averted. "It was, um... nice of you. Not to leave them out there. Is all."

"I'm not heartless," Hapi said, and there was nearly a smile on Marianne's face.

* * *

Hapi found herself thinking about baby chicks.

She was reasonably certain she hadn't discovered some new maternal instinct while they were in her possession. If that was going to be a thing, she was sure it would have been back when she was young and taken with ugly little baby animals.

But maybe it wasn't even baby chicks that she was thinking about, and that was just a helpful way to distance herself from her real thoughts.

Because what Hapi was thinking of, instead of the ugly bare chicks and their harmless cheeping, were open maws and sharp claws, and the whites of frightened eyes, swiveling around in search of escape.

There was--something churning, in the back of her mind. Some new perspective that she couldn't quite wrap her thoughts around, and that she tried not to think of, much, anyway, because sometimes she wished she could sigh in frustration, and that desire tended to become stronger the longer she dwelled on these things.

Marianne was better with thinking these things through, Hapi decided. Marianne probably spent a lot of her time thinking about such things, judging by how easily she'd taken on the monsters’ perspective in their last conversation.

And the chicks were a good excuse, Hapi decided. She could just walk up to Marianne and ask her how the birds were doing. It wouldn't even be that strange; they were acquaintances now. They'd had a conversation. A second conversation was a more natural progression of interactions than just walking up to someone you'd never talked to before, and Hapi had done that already.

The only thing to decide, really, was the timing. Hapi didn't want to corner Marianne in the infirmary again, because she did actually work as a healer there, and disrupting an infirmary at wartime felt like a jackass move. But neither did Hapi want to approach her in the cathedral where Marianne still went to pray among the rubble.

She considered sliding in next to Marianne in the dining hall, but Marianne had her own little group of friends who took up the seats next to her, and Hapi didn't feel like this was a conversation she wanted to strike up when they were around. Hilda was alright, and Balthus knew her from way back, so that was a point in her favor, kind of, but if Lorenz was sitting with Marianne? Eugh. She didn't need her table manners dissected while she was trying to talk about serious monster business.

But Marianne also spent a lot of her spare time in the stables, which Hapi learned through clever information gathering (which was to say, asking Balthus to ask Hilda what Marianne did in her free time). Weirdly, Hapi was pretty sure she would have had Marianne pegged as one of those people who talked to horses anyway, but now with the knowledge that Marianne likely understood what they said back, the notion had taken on some humorous dimensions. Hapi laughingly considered asking Marianne for the latest horse gossip, except the more she thought about it, the more she was seriously curious to know the answer to that question. Did horses gossip? They had to. What else did horses have to talk about? Surely not deep horse philosophy.

This was the line of thought that Hapi was consumed by as she stepped into the stables. She had to stop just past the threshold and blink so her eyes adjusted to the passage from the bright sun outside to the darkness of the stables, but as she stood there, she heard more than just Marianne's voice, as she expected. A man's voice, maybe--low enough for the words to be indistinct, but there was a hiss of accusation underlying it that struck a familiar note to Hapi's ears.

Hapi kept her steps light, so she went unnoticed as she approached the source of the voices. The sight that she came upon was not in any way reassuring. A man was standing in the entrance of a stall. Hapi could see only his back, but his posture was tense and accusatory, while Marianne stood with her head bent, her shoulders bunched up defensively. The man was blocking the entrance to the stall, stopping Marianne from slipping by, but even without noticing that detail, Hapi could read the situation well enough just in the body language.

"My research shows it clearly," the man was saying. "I have traced all possible bearers of that Crest, and it cannot be anyone but you!"

Marianne remained with her eyes downcast, her hands clenching into the fabric of her skirt so tightly they were white-knuckled. For a second it seemed like she wavered on the edge of saying something, but she breathed out a distressed little sound instead, remaining still and silent.

"Hey," Hapi called out.

The man turned around, self-righteous in that way that anger made some people, and now that she was getting a good look at him, Hapi could see he was no real fighter. He had that soft, average build of someone who'd never seen a day of hard labor, much less a battlefield in his life. Not a magic user, either, judging by his unblemished hands and his unassuming clothing, but some guy who spent all his time with his nose in a book.

It felt almost like bullying when Hapi raised her hand with a spell around her fingers--she didn't even think of a specific one, just calling on some dark and baleful source of magic to gather power, and letting the rancid purple glow of it speak for itself.

The man paled, but held his ground.

"Do you think she's worth defending?" he asked. "Do you know what she is?"

"Do you know what I am?" Hapi asked in turn, tilting her head. "Or do I need to sigh and give you a little clue?"

At first there was confusion on the man's face, but as he looked closer at Hapi, realization slowly dawned. Yeah, she figured someone would have warned him about her. A look of alarm followed, only for a beat, before he settled on revulsion instead.

"Birds of a feather, then," he huffed contemptuously. 

But he had enough sense to leave, walking by Hapi without touching her, yet close enough to demonstrate he was not afraid of her. He headed for the exit with his head held high, like he was some sort of hero.

Hapi shook her head and let the spell sputter out around her hand. It extinguished with a numbing little pinch.

"You okay there?" Hapi asked.

Marianne gave a tight little nod, her tension unwinding slowly as the man's steps were growing distant.

"You didn't need to get involved," Marianne mumbled.

"That guy was hassling you about your Crest," Hapi said, not even a question.

Marianne sighed, her shoulders slumping, her hands unclenching. Maybe it wasn't a question she would have wanted to answer just then, or ever, or to Hapi in particular, but her defenses lowered by degrees.

"My Crest..." Marianne began, but her lips worked soundlessly for a few seconds before she settled on, "It is a terrible curse."

"I feel you," Hapi said.

Marianne's eyes darted to Hapi, held her gaze like she was trying to decide if Hapi was mocking her, but she looked away again quickly.

"I thought it just, you know. Helped you speak to animals," Hapi continued.

"No, it--oh. Yes, I suppose that's related, but I meant-- Terrible misfortune befalls anyone who gets close to me. Or... it's what I've always believed, but..." Marianne shook her head, like a dog shaking off water. She became more resolute as she spoke next, "You should probably keep your distance from me. For your own safety."

Hapi considered this notion. She thought about it very seriously in fact, even tapping her chin in thought the way she'd seen Constance do when she was deep in pondering. "Mmmno, that's okay," Hapi said eventually.

Marianne blinked, confused. "...um?"

"Yeah, it's fine, I already have plenty of terrible misfortune, I'm so full up on it that being close to you probably won't make a difference." And then Hapi shrugged.

Marianne tilted her head, looking at Hapi from under her bangs like she'd encountered some strange new creature. 

"I'm not sure that's how it works," Marianne pointed out. "And even if it was, you saw that man today... that Crest scholar. He thought ill of you for associating with me, and he wouldn't be the only one, if knowledge of my Crest came out."

"Wow, okay. Now I'm feeling awkward for not giving you the same warning," Hapi said. "I mean, a lot more people around the monastery know about my little problem, so, odds are, a lot more people are going to think ill of you for being around me."

Marianne's expression twisted to dismay, and she looked almost offended on Hapi's behalf. 

"That's not fair at all," Marianne said, low but fierce. She stepped forward, closing the distance between them in a few short steps, and reached forward to grasp Hapi's wrist, very deliberately, like she was proving something. "You didn't ask for that ability," she said, frowning at some point on the ground. Her fingers were cool against Hapi's wrist, curled against her pulse point with the gentle touch of a healer, and Hapi found herself suddenly concerned that Marianne may sense the hitch of her heart, especially when Marianne then looked up at Hapi and said, with utter sincerity, "And I'm not afraid of you or what you can do."

Hapi's mouth was suddenly dry. 

Because she was flattered. That was it, definitely. She was just feeling touched--literally! Not in the... other way. Not that there was any other way to feel touched.

"Cool," Hapi heard herself replying, from a distant place in her own head where she was, at least spiritually, facepalming. "Okay."

* * *

When Hapi returned to the Abyss, she slunk back to the dorm room. She'd knocked into a hitching post on her way out of the stables, and she might have covered for it better if she hadn't been so flustered at the time, but as it were, Hapi didn't think she did a very good job. Marianne had looked confused by Hapi's clumsy retreat.

And Hapi realized this way too late, but she’d forgotten to even ask about the chicks.

She nearly groaned, but for how close that was to a sigh, and then hoisted herself up to her bed, sinking her face into her pillow. She'd deal with this some other time. She spent the rest of the evening with her face pressed into her hands, if only to cool off the heat of embarrassment. 

Truth be told, she really did feel better the next day--less silly, at least. Marianne didn't seem like the type to mind other people's weirdness, so Hapi wasn't that worried about running into her again.

But she didn't run into Marianne the next day, because by then Marianne was gone to Edmund. And the Professor was walking around the monastery, pulling aside people like they were being discreet, when it was pretty damn clear they were drafting help for one of their very much not-war-related extracurriculars. 

It wasn't that hard to put two and two together. And Hapi could have waited for Marianne to come back when whatever was going on was over, and tried to talk to her then. It would have been the safer choice. 

But Hapi never did pride herself on patience, and if she ambled over and just happened to be at the Professor's elbow as they were having a quiet word with Yuri, well, it wasn't like she invited herself along. She had a valuable skill set, and the Professor had a good eye for that kind of thing. It was only right to help Marianne out, if Hapi was going to get the chance to talk to her again.

* * *

It wasn't until they were in Edmund territory that Hapi began to have second thoughts. 

The forests here weren't anything like the ones around her village; the trees had darker bark, stranger shapes. The fog was thick, and clung wetly to everything. Maybe it was just the knowledge that people had gotten attacked by monsters here, but the entire place seemed a bit eerie.

And Marianne was out there, somewhere. In the creepy forest. Alone.

' _Right_ ,' Hapi thought. ' _This is fine_ ,' she thought. ' _Chatterbox is here, so everything is going to work out._ '

But looking at Professor Byleth's face, as impassive as always but overcast with worry, Hapi felt the first prickling of concern. The air was cold and still, carrying the sound of every scraping hoof and nicker, every clang of metal. Out of some shared instinct, nobody spoke much, or above a whisper, and maybe it was caution, but maybe they were all just spooked.

"Are we even in the right place?" Hapi asked, her voice softer than usual.

The Professor didn't reply at first, or not for a long time, at least, but by the tilt of their head, Hapi realized they were listening for something. 

Hapi fell quiet and tried to listen as well, though she couldn't tell for sure what she was hearing. Even in the safe, familiar forests in which she'd grown up, sounds could bounce weirdly off trees, echo for a long way or warp into something unrecognizable. Was it voices that Hapi heard, or was it the rumbling call of some stag in the distance? Was it far away, or nearby? Was there a monster right behind that tree, waiting to chomp them up?

She gave up on trying to discern anything by sound, because it was only fueling her paranoia. The Professor must've gotten more out of it than she did, because they started relaying orders to everyone. 

There was nothing for it. They would have to advance into the spooky monster forest, and try to locate Marianne. The trees forced them to spread out a bit, but the orders were to stay firmly within line of sight of each other, and Hapi was only too glad to follow that order. She prodded along her horse, grateful for the added vantage in this insufferable fog.

They couldn't have been moving for long, though between the tension that came with the anticipation of battle, and the eerie atmosphere of the forest, it certainly felt like hours. But Hapi could swear that, from the trees, and some direction she couldn't pinpoint, she heard a woman's voice. Marianne's voice. It had to be, because who else would be out here otherwise?

Hapi was looking towards the Professor, trying to see if they'd heard or if they had some order to give, when the more unmistakable roar of something large and belligerent resounded through the forest, loud enough to shake leaves loose off the trees.

The Professor gave the order, of course, but Hapi saw it only as a quick flash of their hands from the corner of her eye, because she was already spurring her horse. It wasn't like she was being rash, or all that heroic, because what other direction could they go? Forward, towards Marianne--and the monster. No avoiding a fight at this point.

For a few seconds, as everyone else was scrambling into position, Hapi's horse shot ahead of the group, the sole set of hoofbeats loud and distinct in the quiescent air of the forest. The fog seemed to swallow everything up, and if she looked back, it was doubtful she'd even see her companions anymore. Hapi looked ahead, though, and even so, she didn't see it.

It was Hapi's horse that knew first, and pulled to an abrupt halt with a panicked nicker. Hapi avoided being thrown, but was instantly on her guard at this reaction; the dark little mare that Hapi rode was a reliable mount, trained to remain calm even in the fray of battle, or when Hapi slung her spells past its head.

That was when Hapi looked up, and saw the figure emerge from the fog: first a large maw slipping through the white curtain, then the gray outline of its body, silhouette and angles that Hapi had mistaken for tree branches when it had been standing still.

It was the eyes that pinned her in place. White around the edges as they rolled in the monstrous wolf's head, falling on her like she had startled it just as much by coming out of the fog. Hapi always felt that monsters had a particular hunger for her, singling her out like she was the tastiest morsel in an otherwise forgettable grab-bag of human-shaped snacks, but this time the weight of its gaze felt more like some strange recognition.

They stopped, frozen, like puppets with their strings cut, and stared at each other. Just stared.

Hapi couldn't say how long it lasted, or how long it would continue to last, because the Professor and the rest of their posse caught up to Hapi, and broke the staring contest with a din of brandished weapons and flashing spellwork.

Whatever that was, Hapi put it out of mind, and maneuvered her horse around, to where leading the giant wolf's hungry gaze would give the others the best opening. 

There was nothing but the clash of battle, then; the tight maneuvering as they were all hedged in by trees, the bright pop of spells cutting through the fog, the snarls of the ravening wolf. Hapi rounded the wolf to flank it with spells, breaking off from under its hungry gaze, and went around it completely to find that, looking off in the distance, there were yet other strange shapes moving in the fog, and drawing in on the sounds of battle.

Great.

A moment of inattention was all it took, and Hapi would have likely lost her head if not for the Professor’s shout, but she turned just in time to see the hurtling boulder coming towards her. She pulled hard on the reins, and ducked as far out of the way as she could, only just avoiding it. The boulder might have been more earth than stone, because as it flew over her head, the most damage she endured was from pebbles breaking off the projectile and showering against her cheek in a stinging wave.

The giant wolf snarled, paws still dancing around the deep furrow in the earth from which it had gathered up its projectile to launch.

Hapi scoffed in response.

"Work on your aim," she taunted, and sent her horse running in a wide circle, out of the wolf's view.

She couldn't say what had her going in the direction she did, past the wolf and deeper into the fog--if it was something calling to her, some twist of fate, or sheer dumb luck. But as she broke away from the fight, swinging so wide that the struggle was smeared into a play of shadows against the fog, what drew her attention was a sharp staccato of labored breathing.

Marianne shot out of the fog like a startled rabbit out of the underbrush, obviously following the sounds of battle, but crossing Hapi's path first. Hapi's horse startled, and Marianne did as well, each stepping away from the other in the same skittering step and turning wide eyes on one another. Then Marianne's gaze went up, to the horse's rider, and Hapi met her eyes.

Time froze, much like when Hapi met the giant wolf's eyes, but also nothing like it. Marianne, who looked perfectly fine but for the mud along the hem of her dress and the flyaway hair loosened from her braid, breathed out in relief, shoulders slumping as some tension seeped out.

Hapi extended her hand, and Marianne took it--let herself be pulled up onto the horse, sitting side-saddle in deference to her skirts.

"The Professor is here?" Marianne asked, as Hapi twisted around to look at her.

"Them, and half the damn army, if they had their way," Hapi confirmed. "But yeah. Don't suppose you've met any damsels needing rescuing?"

Marianne huffed, not quite laughed, and raised a hand to Hapi's face. Hapi didn't understand what Marianne was doing at first, until she saw the glow of white magic out of the corner of her eye, and remembered the sting of scrapes on her face, from the wolf's near-miss. The magic prickled along her cheeks, warm and cold at the same time, sending an unfamiliar shiver through them. It didn't feel like when Hapi used magic, but then, she wasn't a dedicated healer. She... was going to table that thought for another time.

"Hold on tight," Hapi instructed.

Marianne, taking the advice to heart, wrapped her arms around Hapi's middle and hid her face against the loose material of the hood hanging around Hapi's neck. This was not what Hapi meant--she thought Marianne would hold on to the saddle--but she didn't say anything. Marianne felt cold, like the fog still clung to her, and she shivered.

"A lot more monsters in this forest," Hapi remarked, as she turned the horse to head back to the group.

"This is all because of my crest," Marianne whispered with her face still pressed against Hapi's back. 

Or maybe Hapi imagined the words, because they were so very faint. But either way, she found herself not minding the clinging. Marianne seemed like she needed it.

* * *

Marianne held herself differently after they returned from Edmund.

Hapi couldn't really put her finger on what had changed, mostly because she hadn't interacted with Marianne for all that long or all that much before the trip to Edmund. But something must have changed, and even Hapi could see it. 

Did Marianne pray less? Or did it just seem that way because now she no longer bent her head and slumped her shoulders like she was perpetually contrite before the Goddess? Did her smiles last longer? Was her voice more confident?

Well, whatever it was, Hapi decided she liked it. 

Especially since, the next time Hapi approached Marianne at Garreg Mach, it was Marianne who brought up the subject Hapi had been keeping in reserve as a conversation opener.

"Oh! Hapi, the chicks are flying," Marianne said.

"Wow, all grown up already, huh?" Hapi grinned.

"Not-- not really," Marianne amended, her cheeks turning pink. But she didn't bow her head or start apologizing. "They're still fledglings. But they're learning right now, and they'll be old enough to leave the nest soon."

Hapi hummed in interest, tried to make some more small talk about the birds before she could ease her way into more interesting topics, but she found herself unexpectedly invested in learning more about how the chicks were doing the more they talked.

Maybe it was just the setting. Hapi had approached Marianne during one of her greenhouse shifts, during which she took the opportunity to check on the medicinal plants they were growing. Though Hapi wasn't due for her own shift in the greenhouse until the next week, she found herself picking up a watering can and helping out regardless. The sun poured in golden and soft through the windows, and even among the windless and still greenery, set in its rows and sectioned off by stone paths, there was something soothing about this little piece of nature that was nurtured and tended by so many hands.

Hapi didn't dwell on that feeling, because it came too close to the golden-edged memories of her life before leaving the village. But as she swallowed back a bout of nostalgia, she must have paused for too long, because Marianne was looking at her.

"Was there something you wanted to talk about?" Marianne asked, reaching over, touching gentle fingertips to Hapi's elbow.

It seemed like an unpracticed gesture, tinged with that same hesitancy that Marianne had shed since returning from Edmund. Now that she thought about it, Hapi couldn't really remember if Marianne was that prone to casual touch. But thinking too hard on it brought back the time in the stables, when Marianne had clasped Hapi's wrist so deliberately and--

No, that was not what she wanted to talk about. That was definitely something Hapi was going to put in a neat little box and sort away for later.

"Uh, yeah," Hapi replied belatedly. "But I don't know how comfortable you're going to be talking about it, because it's a Crest thing."

"Oh." Marianne paused, looked down to the row of perfect little yellow-petaled blooms that Hapi had probably over-watered just now. "Your Crest, or my--"

"Yeah?" Hapi said, then winced. "I mean, yeah, both, kind of? Mostly mine. It's about mine. Look." Hapi threw one last look over her shoulder, but when she didn't see the greenhouse attendant or anyone else nearby, she decided to just go for it. "You know Linhardt, right?"

Marianne's expression grew cautious in a way that indicated she almost certainly did. 

"He showed me this book," Hapi carried on. "About Saint Timotheos and how he supposedly talked to beasts. I'm not much for stories about saints, to be honest, and anyone can write anything they want in a book, so I didn't think it proved anything, but--" Hapi opened her arms in a gesture she hoped encompassed everything she wanted to say. "--but _you_ talk to beasts. You have a Crest that does all that crazy stuff. And maybe if I tried to, I don't know--"

"You want to talk to the monsters you call?" Marianne blurted out, much to Hapi's relief.

Hapi snapped her fingers and pointed excitedly.

"Got it in one!" she said.

Marianne looked incredulous, which Hapi didn't see the reason for, since the request was perfectly straightforward.

"That's-- an admirable goal," Marianne said, looking down at the ground. She didn't seem anxious, so much as thoughtful, but her tone was maybe a bit too diplomatic, and Hapi felt a polite but firm refusal coming.

Her hand shot out, and grasped Marianne's hand. Marianne flinched at the sudden contact, looked up at Hapi in bewilderment, but apart from the initial surprise, didn't pull back.

"Admirable enough to help?" Hapi asked hopefully. She gave Marianne her most earnest look--which, okay, yeah, earnestness wasn't something she tried to project all that often, but-- Marianne relented slowly, her shoulders relaxing, her head tilting as she regarded Hapi.

"I'll help," Marianne agreed.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

Considering what they intended to do, it felt like a natural choice to set out for some place that was as far away from humans as possible. Luckily, the forests around Garreg Mach were both nearby, and empty of pretty much anyone except the most feral specimens of bandit, whose loss to the world would not strike Hapi as terribly tragic.

The other point of consideration: back-up. Hapi didn't want this little experiment to end in a fight, but she acknowledged, based on past experiences, that it was a possibility she had to account for.

Still...

"This is who you're bringing along?" Hapi asked, giving Hilda a dubious look.

"W-well," Marianne's eyes flitted between Hapi and Hilda, who were in the process of sizing up one another like monastery cats on the prowl. "Um... is that going to be a problem?"

Hilda raised an eyebrow, but whatever protest Hapi could have voiced based on Hilda's reputation as a serial shirker would have to be weighed against the axe slung over Hilda's shoulder, which Hapi had definitely seen in action on the battlefield, so Hapi decided to just shrug and drop it.

"Nope," Hapi said. "I'm sure it's fine."

Hilda smiled sweetly in reply.

But then, when Marianne turned away to tend to the horses, or make small talk with them, or whatever it was she did out of earshot, Hilda's expression turned shrewd, and she gave Hapi a searching look.

"Marianne's a sweet girl, isn't she?" Hilda remarked. "A real bleeding heart type."

"Yup," Hapi agreed, just to see where this was going.

"Hope that doesn't get her in any trouble," Hilda added, in a tone that clearly meant she hoped Hapi wasn't going to get her in any trouble.

"You know, Hilda, if any of us were the type to stay out of trouble, I don't think we would've shown up for a class reunion," Hapi said, leveling a deadpan stare at Hilda.

Hilda pulled a face, and smoothed down her hair like she was trying to banish some awful thought. "Ugh, don't remind me how much work we make for ourselves."

They were saved from making further chit-chat by Balthus finally showing up. He greeted both Hapi and Hilda with characteristic cheer and a good dose of familiarity, though he reined it in when he saw Marianne. Or, he tried to, at least.

"Heard you're going to need help pounding some monsters," Balthus said, and demonstrated his hypothetical contribution by slamming a fist into his open palm and cracking his joints.

"Um-- n-no?" Marianne didn't quite shrink back, but she looked to Hapi and Hilda for support.

"We're going to try not to get into a fight, B," Hapi interjected. "You're coming along in case we screw it up."

Balthus spread his hands in a shrug, looking more than a little disappointed. "Okay, okay, got it," he said. "We're going out for monsters in the woods, but not fighting. Seems like a waste of monsters, but hey, we'll pack some snacks, I'll bring the booze--we'll make it a day. Have a picnic."

"Is that how picnics work?" Hapi wondered.

"No," Hilda said firmly.

"Please, no drinking today," Marianne added in a worried undertone.

* * *

They did not pack any alcohol. They did bring along food and water for the day, but that was mostly rations that came stuffed into the saddlebags, and not really fit for a picnic.

The Oghma Mountains, and by extension the forests surrounding Garreg Mach, offered an extensive selection of secluded spots that would serve their purposes. The only thing left to decide was how far from the monastery they wanted to go and in which direction, both of which seemed determined by whim. They left the monastery at a leisurely trot, but when Hapi asked Marianne where they were going, Marianne admitted that she thought Hapi had somewhere in mind.

After a short bout of bickering and some hemming and hawing--which seemed inevitable with this group, and made Hapi suspect she should have actually invited the Professor along--they stopped at the first large grove they came across.

"This seems as good a place as any," Hapi said, judging that the open expanse of grass and low shrubbery would offer enough space for any monster to move, while the trees would offer good cover for any humans not looking to get stomped to death. Hey, maybe she had learned some tactics from the Professor.

They dismounted and led the horses a short distance away, but as they crowded along the edge of the grove, Hapi thought maybe they really should have brought along actual snacks. That way Hapi could have proposed they had the picnic first and delay this whole thing by a bit. At least until she felt better prepared.

Instead she stood there, stuck at the easiest part. How hard was it to just... sigh? A breath in, and then letting all out in one long exhale. It wouldn't even be dangerous, when it came down to it; everyone here was already braced for it.

As they stood awkwardly, shuffling in place and waiting for Hapi to sigh, Balthus was the first to crack. "So... are you going to do something, or...?"

"Don't rush me," Hapi replied.

Balthus threw his hands up in surrender and retreated a few steps, careful not to crowd her. Hilda, maybe thinking she was being discreet, elbowed Marianne, but even though she didn't say anything Hapi did see them out of the corner of her eye exchanging looks and gestures, until Marianne finally waved Hilda off and approached Hapi.

"So, um..." Marianne began, a bit awkward. 

Hapi couldn't see it, but by the look Marianne shot over her shoulder, Hilda was probably making encouraging hand signals in the background. 

"You know," Marianne said, visibly making the effort to appear confident, "we don't have to do this, if you don't want to. We can head back, I'm sure nobody will mind."

Hapi shook her head. "It's fine. I can do this. I just-- what do I do when it shows up?" The words blurted out before Hapi could even think of them, but once she said it, she became uncomfortably aware that this was the source of her hesitation. 

"When it--? Oh!" Marianne caught on, thankfully saving Hapi from having to elaborate. "Well, when I talk to animals, I try to connect to them."

"Connect, right. I see," Hapi nodded, like she understood that, then switched to shaking her head. "Nope, I don't see. This isn't going to be a friendly little pony you can bribe with carrots. I don't think a monster's going to get what I'm trying to do."

"It will be a wild animal, that's true," Marianne nodded. "It'll also be more afraid of you than you of it."

Hapi snorted.

"It's true," Marianne insisted, in that soft but fierce way of hers. "Look," she continued, and reached over to take Hapi's hand, "you're human. You can be afraid, but you can also make a rational choice to act in spite of your instincts. For animals, and wild ones in particular, instincts will always be at the forefront. You have to accept that, and understand their instincts, before you can work with them. Like-- Like swimming with a current instead of against it."

"Huh." Hapi considered these words, turning them over in her head. Maybe Marianne had a point. "Makes sense, I guess. I still don't know what you mean about connecting."

"Just look it in the eye," Marianne advised, "and agree to simply exist in the same space with it for a while. Don't make any threatening moves, and it might not make any either."

"'Might not'," Hapi repeated.

"Well, that's why Balthus is with us, isn't it?" Marianne said.

They reflexively looked over to him, and Balthus gave them a grin and thumbs up. 

Hapi had to admit he was pretty good for morale.

"You can do this," Marianne assured one last time.

"I can do this," Hapi repeated, just to convince herself.

She breathed in deeply, savoring the way it filled her lungs like she so rarely allowed herself, and then let it all out in a deep, satisfied sigh.

"I can do this," Hapi repeated, as the demonic beast appeared, and advanced into the grove, head low and snout close to the ground like it was trying to sniff out whoever had summoned it.

"I can do this," Hapi told herself again shakily as she advanced and tried to hold eye contact with the demonic beast.

In the end, she couldn't.

But Balthus had fun grappling with a monster, at least.

* * *

The silence during the ride back to the monastery was heavy. Hapi couldn't stand it, because she recognized the quality of it as something too close to pity. Marianne had given her long, regretful looks the entire way back, and even opened her mouth to say something a few times, but then she had closed her mouth again without actually getting any words out.

Hapi slunk back to the Abyss without saying anything, and then went to bed early just so she could be spared any further indignity that day by cutting it short.

The worst part was, it wasn't like she even expected to be successful on her first go at it. Every new skill had a learning curve, and even Marianne probably didn't spring from the womb already chattering with birds or horses, or what have you.

But she hadn't expected her first failure to be so immediate and decisive. The demonic beast hadn't even hesitated from the moment it spotted her--it broke into a run right towards her, ready to stomp her into the dirt. Hapi hadn't even gotten the opportunity to do anything first.

She decided, in light of this, to spend the next day in the Abyss. Not that she was moping, of course. Oh, heavens forbid Hapi ever do something as dangerous as moping, because everyone started giving her worried looks and making heroic efforts to distract her until she swallowed back her feelings and they believed her when she told them she was just fine, thanks.

Constance, who shared dorm rooms with Hapi, was at least self-centered enough that she didn't usually bug Hapi about it, but that morning, when Constance poked her head over the edge of the bunk bed and prodded at Hapi under her bundle of blankets, Hapi had peered out with too much venom.

"What?" Hapi had asked, a bit too belligerently.

"You aren't fallen ill, by any chance?" Constance asked. "Only if you are, I have been working on a very promising cantrip which I have been hoping to test--"

"No," Hapi replied curtly, before pulling the blanket over her head again. She was not in the mood to hear about the latest hare-brained scheme to elevate House Nuvelle back to its blah blah blah. But she was also not willing to snap at Constance for it, because it wasn't her fault that Hapi was in this mood, and Constance really did mean well in her bizarre way.

"Hmm," Constance made doubtful sounds for a bit, but then thankfully let it drop, and Hapi listened to the click of her heels growing distant as she left the room.

Eventually, of course, Hapi would have to leave the bed. She'd have to go eat, or use the toilet, or just stretch out her limbs, and then she'd have to climb down from the bunk bed and go out in the world again and continue living with it, as much as she tried not to think about what 'it' was. But what was wrong with being left alone until she felt like leaving bed? She measured each breath steadily, no matter how much she wanted to let her chest expand in a long, satisfying heave. She had it under control.

She still expected to be interrupted in her not-moping, and from under the blankets, she listened for the tell-tale clack of Yuri's heels, or maybe the Professor’s even footfalls. 

So it was only because she was really listening for it that she heard the soft steps tracking into the room, and stopping only just inside the doorway.

"...Hello?"

Hapi felt cold sweat break out down her back as she recognized the voice, but she was bewildered enough to poke her head out from under the blankets and see Marianne standing in the middle of the dorm room, wringing her hands nervously. When they looked at one another, it was hard to say which of them was more startled.

"Hi?" Hapi said, before gathering the blankets around her and sitting upright. She had a habit of sleeping in her underwear, but while Constance was inured to the sight by now, this acquaintance Hapi had with Marianne probably wasn't far enough along for anyone to know the color of anyone else's unmentionables yet.

"Should I--come back later?" Marianne asked, a blush rising to her face, pink and oddly fetching.

"No, no, it's fine," Hapi assured, as she finished pulling her blanket around her shoulder and torso like a complicated robe, and dangled her legs over the edge, bare and exposed up to the knee. Well, modesty was relative, anyway. Marianne was a healer, she probably wouldn't swoon at the sight of an exposed ankle.

There was no swooning as Hapi hopped down, but there was some red-faced averting of eyes. Nobles always had such weird hang-ups sometimes.

Hapi looked around the dorm room, but it wasn't exactly set up for fancy guests--or really just regular guests--so she just gestured towards the bottom bed of the bunk by flapping a corner of the blanket, and invited Marianne to sit on Constance's perfectly made bed.

Marianne looked around at a loss, noted the lack of chairs, and sat as indicated, arranging her skirts around her. Hapi sat at the other end of the bed, somewhat less graceful as she arranged the blankets around her own self.

"So, what's going on?" Hapi asked.

"I came to have a talk," Marianne said.

"A talk," Hapi repeated flatly.

"Yes. Just a-- I've just noticed that," Marianne looked around the dorm room, nervous, "we've talked a few times, but we never really sat down and really had a proper... talk."

They were both silent for a few moments, and before Hapi could compose some kind of answer to that, Marianne wilted.

"That sounded confusing, didn't it?" She cringed. "I'm sorry. I'm not very good at this. I thought maybe--"

"We could talk," Hapi said abruptly. "Do you have plans for lunch? We could go to the dining hall."

Marianne blinked, but the nervous energy seemed to slough off her as Hapi's offer sank in, and she smiled slowly. 

"Yes, I'd like that," she said.

* * *

They did meet for lunch that day, and the look that Marianne gave her might have just been intense relief that Hapi was fully dressed this time, but either way, it turned out far less awkward than Hapi expected.

Instead of talking about their abortive attempt at monster communication, they made what was first stilted small talk about life at the monastery. At least, before realizing neither one was really all that looped into the latest gossip, and sliding over to talking about other things.

Marianne, with an initiative that Hapi considered heroic, was first to volunteer her personal details, by opening up about what had happened in Edmund territory--which was all just as well, because Hapi was still unclear on what they'd been doing other than getting walloped by monsters in the woods.

This involved, for some reason, a history lesson, and Marianne's face went through several complicated expressions when Hapi said point blank she didn't know who Maurice was, and had never heard of the Ten Elites to boot. The last part was a blatant lie, because Hapi was frustrated sometimes about how everyone in Fodlan seem to assume that all this Crest stuff was important and universally known by everyone else, but the first part was true, at least; given her general disinterest in the subject, she may have heard of Maurice in passing, but never has any interest in finding out who he was.

Marianne only made it halfway through her bowl of stew, instead stirring it with her spoon as it cooled, staring into its depths as she haltingly relayed her family history, and some definitely hair-raising superstitions about her Crest.

"Huh," Hapi said at the end. She'd scraped her own plate clean in the meantime, because she never let good food go to waste, but that didn't mean she hadn't been listening. "You don't actually turn into a beast at night and maul people, though. Do you?" Hapi was certain she would have heard about it if it was happening--and probably gotten the blame for it to boot.

"No, no," Marianne shook her head. "Or, at least it's never happened to me."

"Wow, you sure phrased that in the most reassuring way possible," Hapi deadpanned.

"Oh-- um, I'm sorry, I--"

"I was joking."

"R-right! Sorry."

"You know, I don't apologize half as much as you, and I've done stuff that actually made trouble for people," Hapi pointed out.

Marianne looked back down onto her stew, which had grown stale and cold and was beginning to develop an unpalatable film of grease on top.

"I know," she said eventually. "I'm trying to... change. Be better. And less of a burden to people. But you're trying to change too, and I think that's--" Marianne's cheeks turned pink, and she straightened her back in a self-conscious but deliberate show of assertiveness. "I think that's admirable and I want to help you. If you want my help, that is."

Hapi looked at Marianne, this strange young woman who most of the time looked like someone had brought down a little rain cloud and put it in a dress, and how her grey eyes blazed and her cheeks glowed with color, and started wondering how she had gone for so long not even noticing or thinking of her. Sitting across from her now felt like the way thunder rattled in her chest when it struck loudly enough--though maybe that was her own thumping heart. What had sent it racing like this?

"I don't know what more you can do than you've already done for me, Mar-Mar," Hapi remarked, "but damn if I don't feel honored that I've got you in my corner."

Marianne’s forehead scrunched into a puzzled frown. "Mar-Mar?" she said quietly.

Hapi grinned widely from ear to ear. "Mar-Mar," she repeated, voice firm and brooking no discussion.

"Alright," Marianne removed the napkin from her lap and dropped it on the table, sighing so explosively that she sent her own bangs flying upward. "I have a plan, then."

* * *

Marianne's plan was kittens.

"I don't get it," Hapi admitted.

"Well, you see, when the monastery was abandoned, so were the dogs and cats that lived here," Marianne explained as she led Hapi around the rubble and off to where there was a break in the wall. "A lot of them survived--the cats more so than the dogs--but obviously without humans living here regularly, food and care hasn't been that easy to come by. Now that there are humans in the monastery again, life will get easier for them, but that doesn't change the fact that five years is a terribly long time to go without seeing a human."

"That part, I kinda get," Hapi said. "What are we doing about it, though?"

"Oh, well, if kittens don't interact with humans early enough in their life, they grow into feral cats," Marianne continued explaining, though to Hapi, this really explained nothing. "We're here to interact with them and let them know humans are friends."

"I thought your plan was about learning to get along with monsters," Hapi said.

"It is."

"Ah, because cats are little monsters! Got it. Makes a lot of sense actually."

Marianne had been leaning down next to the opening in the wall--large enough for a human to squeeze in, if they leaned down and weren't that picky about cobwebs in their hair--but she turned back towards Hapi with a serious look on her face.

"Do you... not like cats?" she asked.

"Cats don't like me," Hapi said.

"I'm sure they can learn," Marianne said.

"Mm, I wouldn't get my hopes up."

"Let me rephrase then," Marianne said. "I'm sure that you can learn how to make cats like you, with the proper instruction."

"So you're taking me to class, is that it?" Hapi threw her hands up at Marianne's stern look in return. "Alright, alright. Let's see what you can do. Have at it, Professor Marianne."

"Oh, you don't-- You don't need to call me that," Marianne said, suddenly flustered.

"Professor Mar-Mar," Hapi amended. "What's on the lesson plan for today?"

Marianne crouched down next to the destroyed wall, reaching into the darkness. When she re-emerged, she had three little kittens held between her two hands, like a small furry bouquet... covered in dirt and cobwebs. Well, it was the thought that counted.

"Please sit," Marianne shrugged her shoulder to indicate the nearby grass--grown wild in the time since the monastery's lawn care fell drastically as a priority. 

Hapi didn't argue. She sat cross-legged in the grass, and Marianne dumped the kittens in her lap. They were all three of them grey, their stripes not even fully come in yet. One of them opened its tiny mouth to hiss at Hapi, and it hadn't even grown any teeth besides two little fangs. The other two were friendlier, albeit only because they took to climbing all over Hapi instead, their ineffective baby claws grasping at her corset as they tried to find purchase.

Marianne sat down in the grass as well, arranging her skirts around her fastidiously. Though, Hapi could see Marianne was actually looking at her from the corner of her eye, observing what Hapi would do with the kittens.

Despite her earlier irreverence, Hapi would have actually been okay with actual instruction on what she should have been doing. She picked up one of the kittens--the one who'd hissed at her--and looked into its blue eyes.

"Hi, nice to meet you," Hapi said. "Look at you, being all... kitten."

A delicate little snort betrayed Marianne even if she was already hiding her mouth behind her fingers when Hapi looked at her sharply. But the curl of her smile was still evident by the way it reached her eyes.

Hapi drew the kitten up to her face, rubbing her cheek against its head. Its fur was very soft, and the kitten itself was unexpectedly warm.

"Look at Mar-Mar, giving us homework," Hapi crooned as she continued rubbing her cheek against the kitten's head. In response, it bit her cheek. It wasn't very hard--or maybe it was as hard as it could, but since it was a tiny kitten, that was not very effective--but Hapi got the message and put the kitten down in the grass. "Little monsters," she muttered.

But when Hapi looked to Marianne, the latter was beaming; gray eyes less stormy and more silvered by the afternoon sun. Hapi felt her stomach do a swoop at the sight, and turned her attention back to the kittens before Marianne noticed anything.

Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.

* * *

Whatever Marianne's plan was, the kittens were just the beginning of it. Hapi didn't really get it, though she was willing to go along with it, whether ‘it’ was going to feed the dogs, or spending time in the stables. 

That month in particular, Marianne didn't always have the time to spare, especially when battles and skirmishes brought back wounded. She did not fight as much as she treated patients these days, and Hapi suspected she preferred it this way, but it still weighed heavily on Marianne to be surrounded by the wounded and the ailing so much of her time.

Hapi would have probably been less cooperative and a great deal more sarcastic about the entire endeavor if not for the fact that, at the end of the day, whenever she walked Marianne from the infirmary to her room, even a small detour through the stables to see Dorte could pick up her spirits immeasurably. If Hapi even had an apple in her pocket to feed to the horse, Marianne’s entire face would light up.

So Hapi pointed out the squirrels as they passed, and started carrying a bit of birdseed in her pockets so she'd feed them on their short walks and show Marianne how diligent she was in her lessons. Marianne gave Hapi her small, tired smiles, tilting her head like she was observing something truly engaging, and Hapi found herself wanting to keep those smiles on Marianne's face for longer and longer. 

The kittens grew up more each day. They began climbing everything--walls, roofs, trees--and Hapi found herself having to save stranded cats on more occasions than she felt was strictly warranted. But Marianne had seen her do this once, and had brightened and thanked her like Hapi had committed some act of heroism. Hapi didn't really get it; she just wanted the stupid kittens not to sit there meowing all day and night, it wasn't like she actually cared that much. But Marianne cared. 

Marianne cared about everyone and everything, and Hapi would have been a lot more cynical about it if not for the fact that Marianne was so quiet and understated in her care. She wasn't like the knights, who proclaimed their virtues, and rattled their armor and brandished their swords, but turned out to be little better than thugs and bullies if you ever scratched beneath their shiny surface. 

No, Marianne just rolled up her sleeves and did the messy jobs that caring for something usually entailed: the sealing up of awful wounds, the setting of bones, the changing of bandages and sheets, the dosing of medicine and the comforting of the dying. Marianne had steps so quiet that she could just as well be a ghost, and Hapi would have thought this was sad, or a sign of something terrible in her past, if not for seeing how Marianne could navigate a full infirmary without waking or disturbing a single patient.

The sole cynical thought Hapi could muster was this: if the war was won, the efforts of people like Marianne would have made more of a difference than any knight's sword. But there was no shine or glory to it, so they would never get the credit they deserved.

Which was all to say, there was probably a very good explanation for how Hapi had ended up in the infirmary with Marianne that day, helping her cut up sheets for bandages.

There was probably a very good, noble reason for it. Gratitude, or a show of support.

Certainly not because Hapi was endeared by the little frown and tilt of the head Marianne had as she concentrated on cutting the sheets into long, even strips. It would be weird if Hapi got roped into helping because a pretty girl smiled at her just the right way.

"You've been doing very well," Marianne remarked.

"Thanks," Hapi replied, "but it's just cutting fabric in a straight line. Not exactly complicated work."

To illustrate, she dangled one of the long strips she'd just cut, but now that she held it up, she noticed it was quite a bit crooked, and hastily rolled it up.

"Ah, yes, thank you for helping with this," Marianne said, "but I meant in your other task? You're much better with animals than you give yourself credit for."

"Uhh--"

"I was just wondering," Marianne continued, eyes lowered to the steady glide of the scissors as fabric split under their sharpened edge, "if you felt ready to try approaching a monster again."

Hapi hid her wince, but she also dropped her scissors, and the clatter made Marianne look up, startled.

"Yeah, I, uh-- we're building up to that, aren't we?" Hapi said. "Of course. Of course we are. That's the point. Yeah."

There was a beat of awkward silence, both of them staring at the pile of fabric they had managed to turn to bandages between the two of them. They were almost done, so Hapi didn't feel too bad when next she made her excuses and left. She wouldn’t even remember what she said, later, save a babble of words that indicated she had to leave urgently.

"Hapi--" Marianne called after her, but Hapi was already out the door, and so could pretend she didn't hear it.

* * *

It wasn't like Hapi didn't realize this was coming. Maybe she was just hoping it would be a while yet, and she'd get to enjoy this weird rapport she'd developed with Marianne a little bit longer.

Was running out when Marianne brought it up weird? Ugh, that was probably weird. It wasn't like Marianne would publicly repudiate her or something if Hapi didn't manage to actually learn how to get along with monsters. Despite asking for her help, Hapi wasn't actually beholden to Marianne in any official way.

But if the pretext didn't hold up, if they both realized Hapi would never get any better at this--would they just drift apart? Find new things to keep them busy, and develop some polite distance?

Hapi didn't like dwelling on complicated emotional stuff a lot, mostly because if her face ever looked too dour, everyone around her started acting twitchy. 

What was the easiest way out of this situation, then? Success? Hapi managing to actually chat with some monster the way Marianne did with Dorte? No... maybe success was just as much a loss of the pretext as failure.

Hapi wandered the monastery grounds as she turned these thoughts over in her head. Eventually, she was going to have to go back and actually talk to Marianne about... feelings. Feelings towards monsters, of course, and absolutely no other kind. Or--ugh. Maybe the other kind too? Was Hapi actually going to have to talk to Marianne about this?

What would the Professor say about this?

Probably, 'Hapi, what are you planning to do here?', because as Hapi looked around, she realized with a start that she had ended up somewhere towards the outer walls of the monastery, where patrols only rarely passed. If she walked a bit further, along the cracked and crumbled remains of the wall, she would come upon the place where she ran into Marianne that first night.

Oh. Oh, this was just perfect, wasn't it? Hapi didn't really believe in signs from the Goddess or that kind of dreck, but that didn't change the fact that this far out, with no people around...

Hapi breathed in, savoring the feeling of her lungs being full to bursting, and then let it out in one long breath.

The sigh was barely past her lips when she heard it.

"Hapi?" 

She whirled around to see Marianne. About a dozen very good questions rose up to Hapi's mind, and probably to Marianne's as well, but neither got the opportunity to say anything before Hapi closed the distance between them in two long strides, grabbed Marianne, and hauled her towards the nearest broken wall.

Luckily, Marianne didn't protest once she heard the flapping of giant wings; she understood, and she luckily kept her questions to herself as she and Hapi squeezed together in a crevice of the wall, tight enough that they were pressed together chest to chest.

"You could have told me this was what you were coming here for," Marianne whispered, with no real reprimand in her voice.

There was a scrape of talons against brickwork as the monster shuffled above them on the wall. Luckily, from above, it was unlikely to see the narrow cranny they occupied, but they kept their voices low.

"It wasn't like I was planning on it before I got here," Hapi whispered back, incensed. "Did you follow me here the entire way? That's kind of creepy, Mar-Mar."

Marianne sputtered. "I didn't! I-- I wanted to find you to apologize if I said anything-- I just asked people if they'd seen you, and when they told me the direction you took, I just assumed this might be the place you went." Marianne hung her head--or tried to, but in the narrow confines, that would just mean staring down right at Hapi's cleavage, so she looked to the side instead, her cheeks turning red. Hapi could see how violently she blushed even in the semi-obscurity of their hiding place. "Sorry," Marianne muttered reflexively. "I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to be sorry for, I--" Hapi started, then fell silent as the monster moved again. 

Feathers swept over broken masonry, sending pebbles raining down off the wall. They listened in tense silence as the monster made a confused caw, like it didn't understand why it was there. Then, the sounds of it turning again, lurching a bit more towards the other side of the wall.

"You really don't need to apologize," Hapi said. "I'm the one wasting your time."

"I don't think you're wasting my time."

"Aren't I, though?” Hapi gave a bitter little laugh. “You've got better things to do, and if I really wanted to get better at dealing with my little problem, I could do it on my own." It wasn't what Hapi wanted to tell her, and it wasn't something she'd ever thought until then, but the words burst out of her in a frustrated volley, and now Marianne fell quiet.

Great, she'd made things awkward while they were stuck together in a very small space. Hapi tried very hard not to sigh again.

The silence extended for a while; some jutting brick was jabbing Hapi in the side, but Marianne's weight was comforting, especially since it meant she wasn't alone. In a few minutes they were going to get really hot and sweaty from all this enforced proximity, probably, but for now... Marianne smelled like dry herbs and floral soap. And Hapi was tracking points of contacts between them like the tally was going to decide something: one of Marianne's hands was trapped between their bodies, but the other was holding onto Hapi's upper arm, fingers clenching the sleeve tightly.

Hapi became aware that her own hands had settled against the small of Marianne's back at some point--probably when she was pulling Marianne tightly close so they'd both fit into the hiding spot, but now Hapi was realizing she never let go afterwards. She considered letting go now, but then she'd have to deal with the mortifying dilemma of where else she was supposed to put her hands, so she decided to just leave it for now and not draw more attention to the situation.

Marianne's head was still turned to the side, and by the tension in her jaw, she was probably listening to the monster's movements. But it at least gave Hapi the opportunity to observe the elegant lines of Marianne's profile.

"If I may make an observation," Marianne said suddenly, her voice still soft as always, but coming through clear and confident in the silence.

Hapi wasn't sure she was going to like the observation, but she nodded.

"I used to think very poorly of myself, as well," Marianne said.

"Yeah, you give off that impression."

"Hapi--"

"Sorry, sorry. Is your observation that I think 'poorly' of myself? Because I don't. I'm pretty clear-eyed about myself. And I'm great. But the whole sighing-and-monsters-appear thing is a pretty big hurdle people have to take into account in every interaction they have with me. And doesn't it get just exhausting after a while? Who wants that in a friend?"

"Maybe I do!" Marianne blurted out, head snapping around to look at Hapi. She’d probably forgotten how close they were together--nearly nose to nose--because then she blinked and turned another few interesting shades of red. But she didn't turn away, and her gaze was too arresting for Hapi to look away either. "I think a lot of people would like to be your friends. And I think if they ever got over their fears of you, they'd see what a good friend you could be, too. I just--hope you won't forget about me when you're... when you have your abilities under control... and... that's all."

Now Marianne looked away, after she'd gone and flustered Hapi.

"Well," Hapi said. "Damn. Is that really how you feel about me?"

Marianne nodded stiffly.

"Okay, then," Hapi said. "I'm going out there."

"What?!" Marianne squeaked, looking at Hapi wide-eyed and worried.

"The only way I'm going to prove I won't forget about you when I'm so popular that everyone at the monastery is going to fawn over me is if I go out there, prove I have this monster stuff under control, and then still pick you to hang out with over anyone who afraid of me when they thought I was dangerous." Hapi spoke with confidence, even though her inner monologue was currently stuck on 'I'm going to get myself killed, I'm going to get myself killed, what am I doing'.

Still, she must have sounded convincing, because Marianne just stared up at her, awed.

"Oh, um, okay," Marianne stammered.

"Okay," Hapi echoed with a decisive nod.

They stared at each other for a beat, because they were both equally incredulous over what Hapi was about to do, including Hapi who was the one who decided to do this, but before she could move away, Marianne rose on her tiptoes and leaned up, pressing her mouth to Hapi's.

"For luck," Marianne said, her face red and her voice pitched high.

"I definitely have to survive this now," Hapi said in reply.

They shuffled around one another, embarrassingly awkward for how dramatic the situation was turning out, but Hapi managed to squeeze out of the narrow alcove, and step out into the open. She was still blinking to adjust to the change in light, when she heard the monster bird spot her. The crooning sound in its throat, so much like a growl. The ruffle of feathers as it hopped down from the wall and--and right between Hapi and her path back to the hiding spot.

Well, if nothing else, she knew there was no turning back now.

The large bird lowered its head, long neck craning as it looked at Hapi with one eye, then turned its head to look with the other.

Did it seem... hungry?

No, Hapi shouldn't think about that.

She raised her hands slowly instead, showing she was unarmed. Not that she was, considering that she could just fling a spell in its face, but she didn't think anything that grew to that size ever had much use for brains.

"Hey," she said, voice soft like she was speaking to kittens, "we're good. We're okay. Right?"

The monster tilted its head, peering at Hapi with that she would have once assumed was malevolence. But she thought, instead, about bird chicks--just as ugly, but small and defenseless, able to do nothing but scream for food.

She just hoped this didn't make her the worm in this situation.

But... the monster wasn't making any move on her. It was just watching, puzzled, tilting its head this way and that like Hapi was some mystery it was trying to unravel. Hapi stood very still and endured the scrutiny. The thrum of her panicked heart notwithstanding, this was a far less scary situation than it could have been. Somewhere along the hours she had spent interacting with small critters and birds, she had picked up on their signs of distress: the ruffling of feathers, the spreading of limbs to make themselves look more intimidating, the threatening noises that mostly meant 'no closer or I'll bite you'.

This monster wasn't making any of the usual signs of fright. It looked more like when Hapi had thrown a grape to a pigeon, and the pigeon had spent five minutes pecking at it, utterly unable to figure the grape out.

And then, just as the pigeon had, the monster straightened up, and seemed to come at the end of its train of thought, such as it were. It made a half-hearted caw, more dismissive than anything, and hopped back up onto the broken wall, before opening its wings and flapping away.

Hapi was bowled over by the sudden buffet of wind the flapping wings produced, and she fell ass over kettle into the grass.

The monster passed like a shadow over her, and circled off into the sky.

And Hapi, like some bubble of tension had popped inside her at that very moment, started laughing hysterically.

* * *

Marianne showed more concern in the aftermath than Hapi did. She ran out and knelt next to Hapi in the grass just as the latter was in her fits of uncontrollable laughter, and she ran her hands over Hapi's arms like she was checking for injuries.

But Hapi was fine, other than the strange euphoria she was experiencing. Still, she didn't protest when Marianne took one of Hapi's arms over her shoulder like she was helping someone injured, and Marianne made no protest either, when Hapi's own arm slipped around Marianne's middle and held her tighter than might have been proper.

Hapi's laughter died down, though there was still a grin splitting her face from ear to ear as they returned to the monastery. Marianne compensated for her smaller smile by her face being red to the tip of her ears.

They ran into Hilda on the way back, loitering in the shade, pretending she wasn’t just waiting for Marianne, and Hilda gave them both a once-over before apparently coming to some conclusion.

“Had a fun walk?” Hilda raised an eyebrow.

“It, um-- it was nice!” Marianne added, flushing in a way that was definitely giving Hilda wrong ideas about what they’d been doing.

“It was very educational,” Hapi replied. Her arm squeezed tighter around Marianne’s waist, eliciting a tiny squeak.

“Educational, huh? Is _that_ what they’re calling it these days,” Hilda chortled.

Marianne hid her face in her hands at that point, and Hapi snickered. But she was definitely going to be kissing Marianne’s face all over after she was done hiding it.

* * *


End file.
